Notebook of Flow Less Thoughts..

Preface: This is my opinion. You may have different views and your comments are welcome.

Twitter is not a social media tool that is commonly used among Sri Lankans as they still have the perception that all what can Twitter does is to talk to random people which makes no sense for them. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of Tweeps who use Twitter mainly based on urban areas of Sri Lanka and the number of people who use Twitter seems to be increasing day by day. However, since everyone who starts using Twitter are Facebook users earlier they tend to contribute towards Facebookization of Twitter, which I see as a disaster.

In general Sri Lankan Twitter users tweet about cricket, politics, religion (mostly the Muslim users), road traffic, music/lyrics/in their terms #Sajje, Movies, TV shows, location sharing and so on. And Sri Lankan Twitter timeline has been a very peaceful all these days with everyone respecting opinions of others and making new friends. But my recent observation is that (May be after ICC Cricket World Cup 2011) Twitter has become place to argue which has made it a platform to debate, fight and express depression in comparison to its earlier situation of a platform for fun and knowledge. I do understand people have the right to Tweet what they feel. But still it becomes a disaster when people keep on fighting and make third parties hate Twitter.

As @CharithSoori says Twitter can be used as a tool for personal branding where people can promote their values and build their identity. But many Sri Lankan Twitter users fail in the context of the personal branding due to their involvement in these so called "Twitter Fights". In my opinion Twitter will be lot more productive to Sri Lankans if they stop engaging in "Twitter Fights" which has roots to politics, cricket and other gossips.

Sri Lankan Corporate branding on Twitter is disaster with some firms who use Twitter to with the aim to serve the customer but block them if they make negative comment/ complain. There are some successful business organizations such as @CocoVeranda who use Twitter to successfully brand. However, many of the corporations are not interested in marketing on Twitter which is more similar to kicking off a huge potential to be a success.

True, but when topics pop-up they can be opinionated; different people do tend to have different thoughts and so they start discussing about it.

Most of the arguments come to an end/conclusion, where others don't. That's when people don't give up, fighting for their word. [some tweeps might feel bad about giving-up after coming a long way and others might still have strong belief in their word]

I personally think (another opinion :D) that, this can't be stopped; this doesn't happen only on twitter... just everywhere else too. It's not wrong to have your own opinion.

However, people need to know the subject well, before they can argue about that thing. And if they really want to prove the other person wrong, they need to personally do research to come to a solution. U can't always trust the news of T.v or the newspaper...

I see you've written this in April. Guess some considerable changes have happened in the twitter sphere in SL since then. There are lot of tweeps coming especially from uni's and good lot of them are active. tweetupsl 2 is also alive this week. Can feel the vibes. Many corporates also on board. they will have their own learning curves. Let's just not argue about the obvious though, social media is the future for marketing :)

Agreed. This was written soon after the World Cup finals and resignation of Sanga. Tweeps were depressed. Things have changed now. My latest articles about social media and Twitter are published on Tutebox and you can read those at